A good friend of mine shared something with me that was really cool.  Surely, you’ve heard to TED Talks. In case you didn’t here’s a brief description:

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.

And that’s taken right from their website.

I honestly don’t watch enough of them.  Some of videos I seen are “knock-yer-socks-off” type of good.  Most everything I’ve seen so far has been really inspiration.

So, my friend shared with me, TED Curator Chris Anderson on Crowd Accelerated Innovation, which was featured in Wired. I’ll embed the accompanying video here. I think both the article and the video have profound impact. Anderson’s video focuses on videos, but I feel the same sentiment can be applied towards Twitter and Facebook, and other social media outlets.

What I find interesting, is the concept of people who have passion and are self-taught, can raise the bar on those classically trained.

Innovation is hard work; it based on 100’s of hours of research, practice… abscense of desire… it’s not going to happen…

– Chris Anderson

One of the more remarkable things in his talk, is the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers.  Why is this remarkable? Well, I freaking hate dance… and contemporary dance at that. Watching So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing with the Stars is like taking a shower in prison; I don’t like it.  So when I saw this video, I was amazed.  It got to me… I had never seen a dance performance like that. Here’s the LXD video:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDmjLeqQwsM

I love “Slow Motion Man” at the 1:00 minute mark. Call me silly.

Here’s why I find all of this terribly exciting. Imagine how this sort of access can apply to your life, your kids, your work… there are no limits!  I see what is available to my kids today, and if I filter out the seedier side of the Internet and focus on the exposure and the opportunities they will have that I didn’t have… they can be capable of anything! Granted, I hope to instill in them a good moral compass before they leave the nest, but stop a moment and consider the potential they have before them! It… is… limitless.

Here’s a great example.  One of the things we like to do as a family is watch America’s Funniest Videos on Sunday night. I am a Cat Guy, so I like the funny cat videos.  We found Maru on YouTube, a box-loving, inquisitive cat from Japan.  Maru’s owner seems to have a ton of time on his hands since he has so many videos of Maru. We enjoy watching his videos and I love watching my kids laugh at Maru’s silly antics.  After the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, my kids were actually worried about Maru, (his family is in Tokyo). We found out through his Youtube channel he was okay. My youngest son started getting the idea (he’s six) to make videos to let the rest of our nationally dispersed family, we were okay, too. He’s six! YouTube is as much as part of his life as anything else he watches on TV.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-iIbotFkzQ

In my next related post, I’ll reference the book, “Crossing the Chasm” and how I think this is all related.